The word pickle is related to a similar-sounding Dutch word, pekel, meaning “brine.” In the 1400s, a pickle was a spicy sauce. Soon the word came to refer to the salty or acidic used to preserve foods, and later to the foods themselves preserved in it, such as pickled cucumbers. The old Dutch phrase in de pekel zitten literally means “to sit in the pickle brine.” The English phrase to be in a pickle used to mean “to be quite inebriated,” as in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon) where one character says to the other: I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last! meaning “I’ve been so drunk!” This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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